Dell OptiPlex 24 7440 Review and Ratings

Editors’ Rating:

Our Verdict:
Adept at crunching numbers (if not turning heads), the OptiPlex 24 7440 is a good fit for offices looking for a highly customizable, manageable business all-in-one PC—even one with a 4K screen, like our test model. Read More…

What We Liked…

Stellar 4K screen, with option for touch input

Tool-less chassis, with easy interior access

Flexible stand

Three-year onsite warranty

What We Didn’t…

Thick bezel and speaker bar detract from design

Rear ports difficult to access

No HDMI input

A bit pricey compared to like- or better-configured consumer systems

Dell OptiPlex 24 7440 Review

Table of Contents

Introduction, Design & Features

Sure, the company offers plenty-sexier all-in-one PCs in its other lines, like the XPS and Inspiron. But business systems are a different world, and the dowdy OptiPlex 24 7440 All-in-One is the current king of Dell’s line of all-in-one (AIO) business PCs. It packs an array of the latest technology, tucked neatly inside a basic chassis dressed in business black. No wall-to-wall glass, decorative piping, or other adornments on this AIO: This is hardware stripped to its utilitarian minimum on the outside.

However, that basic-black look doesn't translate to basic performance and features—or basic prices, either. To put our test system on your desk, you will need to pay top dollar—it cost more than $1,600 at this writing—or make a convincing argument to your boss or whomever holds the purse strings in your office. That said, what we tested is just one variety of the machine; Dell offers a number of OptiPlex AIO configurations up and down the price band. We found the configuration we tested to be a speedy, if pricey, mix for the money.

Before we get started on the OptiPlex 24 7440’s impressive collection of components, we should note that Dell has discontinued its old OptiPlex 9000 series. This absence leaves us with only two OptiPlex All-in-One series, the 3000 and the 7000 series, and you might classify these as small AIOs (the 3000 models) and midsize AIOs (the 7000 models). The OptiPlex 3000 series features older models with 19.5-inch screens and newer machines with 21.5-inch panels, while the bigger-bodied OptiPlex 7000 series features older 23-inch models and newer 23.8-inch models. Our Dell OptiPlex 24 7440 review unit sits at the top of the 23.8-inch series.

There’s a wide price spread from the bottom to the top. In the OptiPlex 24 7440 series, models start at $849 for a Core i3-based system running Windows 8.1. Our review unit was based on Dell’s top-of-the-line $1,699 model, but it featured a handful of customization tweaks that actually dropped the price to $1,674 at this late-February 2016 writing.

At the heart of the OptiPlex 24 7440 is a 6th-Generation (“Skylake”) Intel Core processor. With the other components, you have a wide range of customization options. The standard $1,699 "ceiling" configuration features the 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-6500 quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, a 1TB (7,200rpm) hard drive, and a modest dedicated graphics card, the 2GB AMD Radeon R7 A370. The graphics help power the 23.8-inch display, which in the $1,699 machine is a 4K-resolution panel with touch-input support.

Our $1,674 test configuration bumped up the processor a notch, while losing the touch-input feature of the display and the dedicated AMD graphics. It also traded away the hard drive capacity for a speedy M.2 solid-state drive (SSD). Our review unit featured the 3.3GHz Intel Core i5-6600 CPU, 8GB of DDR4 memory, a 256GB M.2 SSD, and integrated Intel HD 530 graphics. Though the display dropped the touch support, ours was still a 4K screen.

That’s an illustration of how configurable this AIO line is—chameleon-like, it can adapt to almost any set of specific component needs, so long as you or your business is willing to pay for them. Given the basic (read: borderline boring) design, though, the OptiPlex 24 7440 is a better fit for back offices and cubicles than front-of-office reception desks and retail kiosks. We can’t help but think that a PC you can configure to well north of $1,500 ought to have an outer design to match.

Design

The OptiPlex 24 7440 was designed to blend in rather than stand out. Its design lacks any element that might turn a head, though we must give props to its stand, which is surprisingly agile, given the downbeat look of the rest of the unit.

The OptiPlex 24 7440 comes dressed in sober black, without a hint of flair. From the stand to the display bezel, even the bundled keyboard and mouse, everything is matte black. Apart from the Dell logo that sits centered below the display, there is nothing in the way of chrome highlights or pops of color. In our test unit, the display portion measured 22.6 inches wide by 15.5 high by 2.5 inches thick. The rectangular stand measures 8.8 inches wide and 10.1 inches deep.

The stand’s arm provides height, tilt, and swivel adjustments, an unusual trifecta. (You might get one or two of these, but seldom all three, in an AIO.) Most all-in-one displays do not swivel, but the OptiPlex 24 7440’s can rotate 45 degrees in either direction. It also offers 4 inches of height adjustment and can tilt back by about 25 degrees from vertical. The stand also provides room for you to stow the keyboard under the display when it’s not in use—good for clearing up some desk space for paperwork when you’re not battling the spreadsheet and e-mail beasts.

The OptiPlex provides ample connectivity options for a business system. On the left edge, you’ll find two USB 3.0 ports, an SD flash-memory-card slot, and a headphone jack…

The tray access for a DVD burner sits hidden on the right edge, along with the power button and buttons to adjust screen brightness or turn off the display…

The ports on the back face downward like on many AIOs and LCD monitors, living on a recessed ridge. That makes them more difficult to access than if they simply faced outward on the back of the display, though it does allow for a neater rear-panel look. The positioning of the ports does make you struggle to plug in a peripheral with the AIO standing upright…

...but on the bright side, those ports are abundant: four more USB 3.0 and a pair of USB 2.0, an HDMI-out port, a DisplayPort output, another audio jack, and an Ethernet jack…

Dell’s included Quick Start guide also showed an HDMI-in port, but one was not included on our review unit. Bluetooth and 802.11ac Wi-Fi comprise the wireless connectivity.

The system features a tool-less design that lets you or your IT person quickly gain internal access. You may have a bit of difficulty at first snapping off the back panel, but its removal does not require the aid of a screwdriver. Inside, you’ll find two hard drive bays (one 2.5-inch, one M.2 on the motherboard) and two memory slots; on our test system, one of each was unoccupied.

Dell implemented the RAM as a single 8GB DIMM. You can see here below the bracket for the 2.5-inch drive; it's simple enough to install one yourself here after the fact. It can be a compact laptop-style hard drive, or an SSD…

Display & Audio

The display on our test unit was an incredibly sharp 4K panel with a 3,840x2,160-pixel native resolution. Bear in mind, though, that 4K has a flip side on smaller screens: Icons and text can be impossibly small and difficult to read when the 4K display is only 24 inches in size. Scaling of icons and interface text within Windows can help with that somewhat, but know that some programs, especially legacy ones, may not support scaling, and you may be forced to contend with tiny menus and dialog boxes if you rely on apps with this limitation. (If 4K is overkill for you, Dell also offers lesser OptiPlex 24 7000 Series models with 1080p screens.)

That said, the appeal of 4K, apart from its obvious appeal for video-watching, is that it does provide a large virtual work area, razor-sharp images, and fine control when working in Photoshop and other graphics apps. As mentioned, our review unit did not feature touch support, but you can opt for a touch 4K display for an added $161 over our test configuration when configuring the OptiPlex 24 7440 on Dell’s Web shop. You will also need to upgrade the integrated Intel graphics to dedicated AMD graphics for a further $73.50 when selecting the touch version of the 4K display. We’re not sure if this is necessary for technical reasons or is simply a quirk of the Dell configurator, but it makes opting for the touch option that much pricier.

The integrated speakers are fairly robust. The sound is predictably tinny—there’s no subwoofer and this is a business PC, so we had little hope there in the first place—but it’s clear enough, and it remains free of distortion at the maximum volume setting, which is enough to fill a small room. Like the ports, the speakers fire downward from below the display, which is less than an ideal arrangement. It’s an especially jarring move considering that the speakers are housed in a wide, 1.5-inch bar that runs the width of the display and looks big enough to host front-facing speaker grilles. This bar, coupled with the display’s chunky bezel, gives the system a dated look.

With the width of bezels shrinking on HDTVs—and essentially vanishing on laptops like Dell’s own late-model versions of its XPS 13 and XPS 15—we’d like to see a similar design trend with business all-in-one PCs, starting with the OptiPlex 24 7440. Given its lofty price in our review configuration, the system should offer a sleeker look. Plus, buyers of all-in-ones are usually shopping for such a system instead of a standard tower desktop because they are short on space. The thick bezel and speaker bar add to the system’s dimensions and detract from its overall appearance. And they certainly don’t help the OptiPlex 24 7440 fit into cramped cubicles, crowded desks, and other small spaces.

The standard peripherals bundle with the OptiPlex 24 7440 is a wireless, no-nonsense keyboard and mouse. They are fairly basic but still a step up from a wired set. The keyboard features comfortable keys and a dedicated number pad, while the mouse is a plain ambidextrous design with an optical sensor. They won’t wow anyone, but they will suffice for day-to-day office work.

Table of Contents

Dell OptiPlex 24 7440

Our Verdict:
Adept at crunching numbers (if not turning heads), the OptiPlex 24 7440 is a good fit for offices looking for a highly customizable, manageable business all-in-one PC—even one with a 4K screen, like our test model.

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